Jockeying for City Council seats

Two City Council races will test if voters are satisfied with the direction of budgeting, public safety and the style of government in Saratoga Springs. The contests come after two tumultuous years in which a projected budget crisis led to seven police officers and seven firefighters losing their jobs.

Finance Commissioner Kenneth Ivins, a Republican, faces a challenge from Democrat Michele Madigan, while another newcomer to politics, Democrat Christian Mathiesen, is running against Public Safety Commissioner Richard Wirth.

With Mayor Scott Johnson also up for re-election, the three races will determine what political party runs the five-member City Council for the next two years. The body is presently controlled by four Republicans. The commissioner and mayoral jobs pay $14,500 a year.

Ivins, 54, is a computer technician running for a third two-year term as finance commissioner, who writes the city budget each year. Ivins’ 2012 budget calls for a half-percent tax rate increase, but his 2011 budget asked for a more than 8 percent hike.

In 2009, after the state ceased giving the city more than $3.8 million in annual funds for hosting a state-run racino, Ivins predicted a major budget gap. That resulted in the elimination of at least 40 city jobs, including the 14 cops and firefighters. But revenues for the year came in much higher than he projected, and the city, which had $1.5 million a year in “VLT” monies reinstated this year, now sits on more than $5.2 million in “rainy day” funds.

“I made some tough decisions that were not always popular, but I thought were necessary,” Ivins said at a recent candidates forum in Saratoga Springs High School.

Madigan, 45, has worked as a director of library and information services. She’s criticized Ivins for what she calls needless tax increases and unreliable budgets, which she says resulted in reduced essential services.

“Every city needs accurate budgets, someone who understands revenues, expenses and the impact of financial actions,” Madigan said. She believes that rehiring police officers would ease increasing overtime costs and ensure adequate staffing. But Madigan declined to commit to rehiring them. She recently received the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Police Protective and Benevolent Association.

The cuts brought the city’s police force to 65 members. The city’s firefighters’ jobs, which were lost in January 2010, were temporarily restored that September with federal monies. That funding expires next October.

Wirth is a private investigator running for his second term commanding the city’s police and fire departments. He says he brought the city’s 124-year-old police station up to code and common sense to the department. In one of his thorniest decisions of his tenure, Wirth elected to allow police Chief Christopher Cole to remain in his job despite the chief admitting to “sexting” from City Hall.

Wirth touted cutting the department’s overtime in 2010. He has acknowledged that overtime costs and payouts for employee banked time have grown in 2011 — they already exceed this year’s budget by close to $200,000 — but says that total department spending will be down.

“Our city is a place where people come to visit and live, and are not afraid to walk around town,” Wirth said. Last June, the commissioner voted in opposition to a plan that would have made bars in the city close at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. from September to June.

Mathiesen, 60, works as a dentist in the city. Cutting police officers has resulted in fewer DWI patrols, more overtime and less crime prevention, he said. Law and order issues on Caroline Street, including intoxicated and often “out of control” crowds, make the community unsafe sometimes at night, Mathiesen said.

“That’s an issue not being dealt with,” he said.

Wirth, 61, voted to appeal a State Supreme Court judge’s ruling that affirmed signatures of Saratoga Citizen, a group of more than 2,000 city residents who want a vote to replace the city’s 96-year-old commission form of government with a council and manager. The 3-2 vote, which Ivins opposed, kept the measure off the ballot.

“Any government can be improved,” Wirth said. “But this government works in my opinion. It’s civil.”
Madigan and Mathiesen favor bringing the reform measure to a vote.

Replacing the small police station in the basement of City Hall is a perennial issue in the city. But so is spending. At a recent candidates forum, all four candidates agreed that a new station is required. But Republicans called it unaffordable, while Democrats said they should include it in plans for the future.